She caressed his cheek. “It took great presence of mind to do what you did.”
He smiled down at her. Then she added, “Borrow my magic anytime,” and he had to suppress a sigh. Tempting—very tempting. But no. If Project 96 almost killed him when it drained the magic out of him, how could he be sure that tapping hers wouldn’t shorten her life?
He would never stop missing spellcasting—he knew that. He would hope, until it happened or the day he died, that his abilities would somehow regenerate.
But what he had, here and now, felt like more than enough.
“Beatrix Jane Blackwell,” he murmured, “I will love you until the end of time.”
“Peter William Blackwell,” she said, smiling her wonderful crooked smile, shifting in a way that made his nerve endings sing, “I look forward to it.”
As soon asBeatrix stepped onto the platform, gripping Peter’s hand, the hum of the crowd gave way to shouted questions and thepoof-poof-poofof camera flash bulbs.
“Omnimancer, can you tell us what happened?—”
“—the vice president?—”
“Omnimancer!”
“—Detroit—”
“Omnimancer!”
Joan cleared her throat into the microphone and the din subsided. “Thank you for joining us. May I introduce Beatrix Blackwell—please hold your questions until she is done speaking.”
Beatrix could see the furrowed brows of the newsmen. She was not the Blackwell they wanted. More than one story that morning had referred to Peter rescuing her “like a prince with his sleeping beauty,” and no one, not even Hickok, knew what role she’d played.
The size of the assembled press corps seemed big enough to encompass someone from every news organization in the country. Right in front, wearing his yellow fedora and acid smirk, stood Roger Rydell. She felt the old panic rising like bile until she shifted her gaze to the crowd of women behind them, all looking back at her. Women who’d taken risks for months. Who’d said “yes, I will.” Who’d come here knowing they could be thrown in jail.
She pressed her hands together, feeling the reassuring metal texture of the protection spell on her skin. Then she spoke directly to them.
She told them about the experiments nine decades earlier that proved women could spellcast. About the plan she set in motion, hoping it would save her sister’s life. About the way it took on a life of its own.
“You didn’t know any of that when a friend asked if they could trust you with a dangerous secret,” Beatrix said. “You’d thought the government was telling the truth whenit said that only a relative few are capable of magic—all of them men. But that was a bald-faced lie. And we can prove it.”
She took off her hat and held it out with one hand. With her other, she gripped leaves.
“Ahebban!”
The word rippled through the crowd in a hundred thousand echoes. An instant later, a hundred thousand hats floated in midair. A sight to take the breath away.
The opening shot of a revolution.
She turned and held out her hand to Peter. He stepped forward and took it, pressing his shoulder to hers.
EPILOGUE
June 29, 2021
FBI: Gossip columnist took money to write ‘hit pieces’
By Helen Hickok
Starstaff reporter
An associate of Vice President Draden paid Roger Rydell $50,000 to write a stream of negative stories about Beatrix and Peter Blackwell, the FBI said yesterday as officials charged the gossip columnist with accepting bribes.
July 25, 2021
